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Tag: Olivia Rodrigo Guts

  • Olivia Rodrigo’s “Obsessed” and Sabrina Carpenter’s “Taste” As Companion Pieces

    Olivia Rodrigo’s “Obsessed” and Sabrina Carpenter’s “Taste” As Companion Pieces

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    Just as Olivia Rodrigo’s “Obsessed,” a bonus track from the Guts (Spilled) edition of her sophomore album, is focused on the “three’s a crowd” theme, so, too, is Sabrina Carpenter’s “Taste.” But more than merely referring to the “three’s a crowd” trope in general, each song has its emphasis on when the male in a hetero relationship is still in contact with his ex…whether metaphorically or literally (which is why Mýa’s “Case of the Ex” is owed a great debt in both singles’ cases). Or, perhaps worse still, when he constantly (whether openly admitting it or not) compares his ex to his current girlfriend. In ways both insidious and overt that eventually make him go back to the ex in question because he feels that only she can fulfill what he “really” needs, and maybe he made a mistake in leaving her in the first place (see: Ben Affleck with Jennifer Lopez). Carpenter’s “Taste” speaks to the latter, while Rodrigo’s “Obsessed” details how a current girlfriend in the “three’s a crowd” permutation is the one more fixated on an ex than the boyfriend who was actually with her (ergo, the lyrics, “If I told you how much I think about her/You’d think I was in love”).

    Considering Rodrigo and Carpenter’s love triangle history (with a mid white guy, mind you—which just goes to show that it really is “Slim Pickins” out there, even for meticulously groomed celebrities), one might speculate that there’s a certain element of “Taste” that’s retroactively directed at her. Especially if she listened to “Obsessed” (which of course she did). However, most feel that Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello are the inspiration rather than Joshua Bassett and Rodrigo. And yet, there’s no denying that the latter two were the “OGs” in terms of providing Carpenter with plenty of raw material for this subject matter. Just as Carpenter likely helped furnish a blueprint for Rodrigo’s “Obsessed,” a “rock” (by pop standards)-oriented track during which she moodily sings, “I’m so obsessed with your ex/I know she’s been asleep on my side of your bed, and I can feel it.” Almost as though directly replying to that line, Carpenter casually boasts during “Taste,” “Now I’m gone, but you’re still layin’/Next to me, one degree of separation.” So it is that, at times, “Obsessed” and “Taste” come across like call and response companion pieces. (Though less feud-y and direct then, say, the call and response songs between Drake and Kendrick Lamar.)

    Rodrigo is already famously known for being a victim of self-flagellating comparison—of the sort that Carpenter’s playful confidence in most of her songs goes directly against. With “Taste,” she appears to be trolling just that sort of “Rodrigo girl” with inherently low self-esteem by goading her via the lines, “Every time you close your eyes/And feel his lips, you’re feelin’ mine/And every time you breathe his air/Just know I was already there.” She digs the knife even deeper by highlighting the “sloppy seconds” aspect of this dude getting passed back to the erstwhile ex, chirping, “You can have him if you like/I’ve been there, done that once or twice/And singin’ ‘bout it don’t mean I care/Yeah, I know I’ve been known to share.” The latter lyric is where Carpenter directly refers to the love triangle that was made notorious by Rodrigo through “drivers license,” during which she calls out “that blonde girl” her own ex is “probably with,” also getting the dig in that she’s “so much older than me” (the two are four years apart, but one supposes that seems like a lot when one is seventeen, the age Rodrigo was when she wrote the song).

    While Rodrigo’s standard songwriting method is to home in on every painful detail about a breakup (a trait picked up from Taylor Swift by many “next generation” girls), Carpenter, in contrast, has a much more sardonically glib approach (one that especially shines through on the undercuttingly emotional “Sharpest Tool” from Short n’ Sweet). That’s the tone that embodies “Taste” as she shrugs off the loss of a so-called man who was way too into his ex…to the point where he would end up getting back together with her (another theme present on Short n’ Sweet’s “Coincidence”).

    Even though, beneath all the jocular, braggadocious armor, Carpenter was likely just as obsessed with that boyfriend’s ex as Rodrigo when she admits, “I’m starin’ at her like I wanna get hurt/And I remember every detail you have evеr told me, so be careful, baby.” Where the song starts to veer away from the type of guy Carpenter is alluding to in “Taste” is when Rodrigo mentions, “You both have moved on, you don’t even talk/But I can’t help it, I got issues, I can’t help it, baby.” And yet, such a confession does only serve to underscore the point Carpenter makes in the chorus of “Taste”: “Well, I heard you’re back together and if that’s true/You’ll just have to taste me when he’s kissin’ you/If you want forever, and I bet you do/Just know you’ll taste me too.” In other words, there’s always three people in a relationship: the “au courant” couple and the guy in said couple’s ex-girlfriend (since, in pop culture, women’s exes don’t seem to invoke as much jealousy, obsession and fear).

    Being that the narrative of “Obsessed” essentially mimics the plot of Sex and the City’s season episode, “Three’s A Crowd,” it’s fair to say that it also applies to “Taste.” And when Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) gives the rueful voiceover, “What Mr. Big didn’t realize was the past was sleeping right next to me” in response to him saying, “Let’s not talk about the past, please,” it’s only further proof that the ex has won even if she’s no longer with him. Because, yes, Carrie can still “taste” her when she’s kissing Big (Chris Noth). Which just goes to show that there is plenty of underrated vindication in being someone’s ex in terms of “leaving a mark”—even if you were foolish enough to think you could never live without them.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Less Sophomoric Efforts Appear on Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts (Spilled)

    Less Sophomoric Efforts Appear on Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts (Spilled)

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    After releasing four of the five songs that now appear on the Guts (Spilled) edition of Guts by way of hidden tracks on different versions of the album, Olivia Rodrigo has at last made those songs easily available to all—and she’s even thrown in an extra one for good measure (“so american”). Of course, it probably makes the people who bothered to collect all four editions of Guts in order to hear each hidden track feel a little bit used, but such is the nature of capitalism (just ask Taylor Swift, whose many versions of albums featuring different cover art or songs would be enough to drive any fan mad). 

    While Guts, overall, sounds like what can best be described as Sour: Part Deux, the additions of these particular tracks lend a less sophomoric feel to the record, even if many of them are still rooted in the same old “Olivia problems”—which is to say, she’s been deeply affected and/or hurt by a boy (or “man-child,” as Lana Del Rey would say). Except that, in the case of the first song that kicks off the round of bonus tracks, she’s been deeply affected/hurt by a boy’s ex. Obsessing over her endlessly and all the ways in which she’s probably superior. Hence, the song title: “obsessed” (which, it bears repeating, Mariah Carey has a monopoly on as much as she does Christmas). 

    The shorter (two minutes and one second) “girl i’ve always been” seems a continuation, in its way, of “obsessed” in that it finds Rodrigo insisting that she’s always been this way: obsessive, maniacal, “too much,” etc. And yet, the boy in question would dare to tell her, “Baby doll, you have changed.” To which Rodrigo replies, “I’m nothin’ if I’m not consistent/You knew everything you were gettin’.” The folksy meets alt-rock musical tone channels, in certain respects, a tincture of Kesha on Rainbow (e.g., “Hunt You Down,” “Godzilla” and Spaceship”) and Lana Del Rey in her post-Honeymoon era. Indeed, Del Rey is often channeled lyrically by Rodrigo within these bonus tracks. For example, the way she says, “I get down with crooked men” recalls the manner in which Del Rey declares, “I get down to beat poetry” on “Brooklyn Baby.” And then, as though to prove the adage that everything is a copy of a copy, Rodrigo wields the phrase, “I am a candle in the wind.” Although originally a phrase immortalized by Elton John, Del Rey recently took to adopting it on “Mariners Apartment Complex” (“I ain’t no candle in the wind”) and “Yosemite” (“No more candle in the wind/Not like before when I was burning at both ends”). Elsewhere, Rodrigo shrugs, “I can say I’m a perfect ten/But I am the girl I’ve always been,” which seems like a loose riff on the “She a ten, but…” meme. 

    A more “esoteric” (to those too daft to know) reference that Rodrigo is channeling on this song (unwittingly or not) is Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians’ “What I Am.” Her higher-pitched tone and sarcastic snarkiness easily harken back to this classic “alternative” hit from 1988. But, ultimately, Rodrigo must return to her go-to for emulations, Taylor Swift. At least with a song title such as “scared of my guitar,” which sounds a lot like the Swift title, “Teardrops on My Guitar.” And yes, there are certain thematic similarities in that Rodrigo discusses how the only “person” she can be completely honest with about her feelings is her guitar. And the reason she’s scared of it is because she doesn’t want to talk herself out of the idea that she’s “really happy” with the dude who treats her like shit (thus, “Perfect, easy, so good to me/So why’s there a pit in my gut in the shape of you?”). The slow, stripped down track is in keeping with other “whiny bitch” anthems Rodrigo has become known for (e.g., “traitor” and, more recently, “logical”) and perhaps one-ups Swift’s “Teardrops on My Guitar” on that front (and on the front where it’s not a country song). 

    Explaining why she’s so scared of her guitar, Rodrigo sings, “‘Cause it cuts right through to the heart/Yeah, it knows me too well so I got no excuse/I can’t lie to it the same way that I lie to you.” And to herself, for that matter. As for Swift, she pronounces,“‘Cause he’s the reason for the teardrops on my guitar/The only one who’s got enough of me to break my heart.” Each singer-songwriter turning to her only true confidant—the guitar—when things get messy in matters of romance. What’s more, both tracks build on a rare genre in music: women talking about their guitars. The only other singer to do that with notable panache was Amy Winehouse on “Cherry.” 

    The following song, “stranger,” also has some Swiftian parallels, lyrically speaking (though certainly not with its “ramblin’ man” musical sound). Namely, a parallel to “I Forgot That You Existed.” Granted, Rodrigo isn’t quite as cold in this song (not the way Swift is with her chirpy announcement, “I forgot that you existed/And it isn’t hate, it isn’t love/It’s just indifference”). For instance, she admits, “God knows that I am the girl I am because of you,” which feels like a biting homage to “girl i’ve always been.” Rodrigo even goes full-tilt Del Rey yet again with the lyric, “I’ll love you till the end of time” (someone’s been listening to “Blue Jeans”). And then, for the coup de grâce, “You’re just a stranger I know everything about” channels Gotye’s lyrics, “Now you’re just somebody that I used to know.” But sometimes, that can be for the best. For, like Billie Eilish on “Happier Than Ever” or Angela Chase (Claire Danes) saying she woke up one morning feeling like Jordan Catalano (Jared Leto) had been surgically removed from her heart, Rodrigo describes, “I woke up this morning and I sat up straight in bed/I had the strangest feeling of this weight off of my chest/I hadn’t felt that hopeful since the day that you left.”

    Rodrigo also seems hopeful on the final addition to Guts (making it Guts [Spilled]), “so american.” Not only continuing the motif of “all-american bitch” (both songs now functioning as “american”-related bookends to the record), Rodrigo opts for Springsteen’s sonic vibe again (the same way she does on “love is embarrassing”). And why shouldn’t she when she wants to give off the aura of being “so american”?

    Here, too, though, she’s serving up major Swift comparisons in that she’s also fallen for a British “man” (Louis Partridge, who’s about to come up in the world by appearing in the Alfonso Cuarón series, Disclaimer). One who Rodrigo makes mention of marrying when she sings, “Oh God, it’s just not fair of him/To make me feel this much/I’d go anywhere he goes/And he says I’m so American/Oh God, I’m gonna marry him.” That mention of “I’d go anywhere he goes” also coming across like Ariana Grande on Eternal Sunshine’s “imperfect for you” when she says, “Now I just can’t go where you don’t go.”

    It’s all a lot of pressure to put on a bloke, British or otherwise (“otherwise,” in this case, being a Munchkin). Something Swift herself must know about after writing “Paper Rings” and “London Boy.” Having clearly had her own fill (sexual innuendo intended) of Brits, Swift’s fine with being “so american” if one of her upcoming songs, “So Long, London,” is an indication. All the more reason for Rodrigo to say hello to it then.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Olivia Rodrigo’s “Obsessed” Is Essentially the Plot of Sex and the City’s “Three’s A Crowd”

    Olivia Rodrigo’s “Obsessed” Is Essentially the Plot of Sex and the City’s “Three’s A Crowd”

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    Taking a gamble on assuming that anyone could ever forget Mariah Carey has a signature song called “Obsessed,” Olivia Rodrigo has opted to release a single of the same name from the Guts (Spilled) edition of her sophomore album. Although she’s already been performing it on her Guts World Tour, the official release of the track has also been heralded by an accompanying music video directed by Mitch Ryan (known mainly for his Rosalía videos). Though, clearly, Rodrigo is still stuck in her Petra Collins phase here, complete with the prom queen aesthetic that Courtney Love already ripped Rodrigo a new asshole for when she used it during her Sour Prom era. Indeed, “Obsessed” feels like Rodrigo can’t quite leave her high school days behind, swapping out a prom for an “exes ball” (or “gala”) instead so as to be able to still wield her prom queen look. 

    While that might not include any tiaras this time, it does involve gowns and sashes—and trophies…oh my! Thus, the event is seemingly equal parts beauty pageant and cotillion. A parade of all his exes branded with different labels on their sashes, including Miss Focus on My Career, Miss Put Him in Therapy, Miss Summer Camp 8 Years Ago, Miss Thought She Was the One, Miss Long Distance, Miss Freshman Year and Miss 2 Summers Ago, among others. (Olivia herself is, naturally, Miss Right Now.) Obviously, the guy Olivia is with is both much older (a seemingly new fetish of Rodrigo’s after her Joshua Bassett debacle) and a total himbo. However, despite the video’s plot in terms of featuring many, many exes for Rodrigo to obsess over, it still channels the season one episode of Sex and the City called “Three’s A Crowd.”

    As the title suggests, it’s all about when one, as the current girlfriend, feels like the odd person out in her relationship thanks to the looming, spectral presence of the ex. In Carrie Bradshaw’s (Sarah Jessica Parker) case, that looming presence is Barbara (Noelle Beck), Mr. Big’s (Chris Noth) ex-wife. As episode eight (featured, funnily enough, right after the episode titled “The Monogamists”), it was to serve as a turning point for whether or not the Carrie and Big relationship would endure or crumble under the pressure of Carrie’s expectations for such an emotionally unavailable man (to be sure, that does sound a lot like Rodrigo). So emotionally unavailable, in fact, that he only thought to tell her he was previously married when she happens to ask if he’s ever done a threesome. To which he replies, 1) “Sure, who hasn’t?” and 2) that the person he did it with was his wife.

    Needless to say, this sends Carrie into a tailspin as she assumes that they were probably always having “wild sex” together while, now, he and Carrie are only having “sweet sex” ever since settling into comfortableness with each other. This presumption about Barbara being more adventurous in the boudoir plays right into the bridge of “Obsessed” that goes, “Is she friends with your friends?/Is she good in bed?/Do you think about her?/No, I’m fine, it doesn’t matter, tell me/Is she easy-going?/Never controlling?/Well-traveled? Well-read?/Oh God, she makes me so upset.” 

    As Barbara does Carrie. Even more so after the latter actually meets her, arranging a sitdown with “Barb” after finding out that she works in publishing. This kind of obsessing, indeed, puts Rodrigo’s to shame. For, in the modern era, all a Miss Right Now has to do is stalk an ex-girlfriend’s social media from the safety of her own bedroom rather than actually meet up with her in real life under false pretenses. That level of obsession is far more suited to the verse, “If I told you how much I think about her/You’d think I was in love/And if you knew how much I looked at her pictures/You would think we’re best friends.” Carrie, however, is much too narcissistic to lay claim to the following declarations in “Obsessed”: “‘Cause I know her star sign, I know her blood type/I’ve seen every movie she’s been in, and, oh god, she’s beautiful/And I know you loved her, and I know I’m butthurt/But I can’t help it, no, I can’t help it.” 

    And what Carrie can’t help is being irritated by Barbara’s good looks and ostensible good taste when she immediately tells Carrie, “I’m a huge fan of your work.” This speaks automatically to Rodrigo’s vexed tone when she sings, “She’s talented, she’s good with kids/She even speaks kindly about me.” Having come face to face with “the enemy,” Carrie tries to remove the encounter from her thoughts, giving the voiceover, “That night, I thought I could put the whole Barbara thing out of my mind. After all, Mr. Big was with me now.” That he is, as Carrie lies in bed with him trying to get into some hanky panky before she imagines Barbara “supervising” the whole thing and berating, “Nibbling his earlobes? How sweet. Let me show you how it’s really done.”

    This makes Carrie feel hopeless and “lesser than” anew as she instantly recoils from Big and turns to face the other way, musing inwardly, “So I guess you couldn’t avoid a threesome. Because even if you’re the only person in the bed, someone has always been there before you.” Such an assessment is in line with Rodrigo’s chorus, “I’m so obsessed with your ex/I know she’s been asleep on my side of your bed, and I can feel it/I’m starin’ at her like I wanna get hurt/And I remember every detail you have ever told me, so be careful, baby.”

    Big, not so clueless as to ignore her strange mood, prods, “Hey, what just happened? Where’d you go?” She shrugs, “I was preoccupied.” “No kidding. About what?” Carrie’s internal voice then replies, “Your ex-wife’s breasts, your ex-wife’s lips, your ex-wife’s long legs.” Damn, talk about obsessed. In such a way that also applies to Rodrigo’s self-referential lament, “​​She’s got those lips, she’s got those hips/The life of every fuckin’ party.” These two lines giving a nod to both “all-american bitch” (sarcastically announcing, “I’m a perfect all-american bitch/With perfect all-american lips/And perfect all-american hips”) and “ballad of a homeschooled girl” (“the party’s done and I’m no fun”—hence, she herself is no life of the party). Rodrigo adds to that, “And I know you love me, and I know it’s crazy/But every time you call my name, I think you mistake me for her.” This being an inverse allusion to her role in “deja vu.” Like Carrie, Olivia knows that, technically, “You both have moved on, you don’t even talk/But I can’t help it, I got issues, I can’t help it, baby.”

    When Carrie manages to get a few more details out of Big, he quickly closes the “ex file” (a term Carrie will later use on Jack Berger [Ron Livingston] in the season six episode, “The Perfect Present”) by saying, “Let’s not talk about the past, please.” Carrie then allows herself to be held by him, but still imagines Barbara in bed right next to her as she narrates, “What Mr. Big didn’t realize was the past was sleeping right next to me.” Rodrigo clearly has some of those same sentiments. 

    Co-written with St. Vincent a.k.a. Anne “Annie” Clark and Dan Nigro, one has to wonder if either of the three parties watched “Three’s A Crowd” at any point during the song’s creation. For it so perfectly sums up Carrie’s dilemma in this episode. And now, Rodrigo’s in “Obsessed.” However, the takeaway that Rodrigo doesn’t seem to glean is the one Carrie comes up with by the end: “I realized the real appeal of the threesome: it was easy. It’s intimacy that’s the bitch.” Of course, this reinforces the monogamous heteronormative belief that a person can only have “true intimacy” with one other person. A philosophy that Rodrigo, in her bid to graft 90s and 00s-era pop culture for everything she does, is only too ready to perpetuate.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Olivia Rodrigo and the Myth of “Kennedy Class,” Or: The Kennedy Fallacy

    Olivia Rodrigo and the Myth of “Kennedy Class,” Or: The Kennedy Fallacy

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    In keeping with the tradition of elevating the Kennedys to the height of glamor in American politics (which should be telling of how “glamorous” American politics is), Olivia Rodrigo’s opening track for Guts, “all-american bitch,” wields a more than somewhat false simile. Specifically, “I got class and integrity/Just like a goddamn Kennedy, I swear.” But, unless this line is meant to be facetious (as many of the others in the song are), Rodrigo seems as misinformed as she was about which short story collection of Joan Didion’s she actually took inspiration from in coming up with the title for this song. For it’s no secret now (as it scarcely was then) that the Kennedy name/presidency was mired in crookedness (though only Marilyn can truly say if that applied to JFK’s dick as well as his code of ethics).

    From the rumors of John’s patriarch, Joseph Kennedy Sr., pulling the necessary strings to nudge then-mayor of Chicago Richard Daley to, let’s say, influence certain Cook County ballot boxes to using the Secret Service to ferry his various mistresses in and out of bedrooms, the Kennedy name—particularly in its primary association with “Jack”—hardly equates with class or integrity. And definitely not discretion. Indeed, JFK was about as discreet as Miss Monroe’s Jean Louis gown at his forty-fifth birthday celebration/Democratic Party fundraising gala in 1962. A spectacle that occurred mere months before JFK probably killed her (with some help from RFK, perhaps—and Teddy, per a slightly offensive 1985 SNL sketch in which Madonna plays Marilyn…this being only fair considering she would end up sleeping with John Jr.). A “conspiracy theory” that certainly wouldn’t be classy if it turned out to be true. But even if it’s not (which remains debatable to many), there are still plenty of other ways in which JFK hardly radiated class. The same went for the rest of his “clan” (as the Irish like to call families—particularly families of a storied and extensive lineage). Whether it was RFK’s own affair with Marilyn (and Jackie, for that matter) or Ted Kennedy leaving the scene of the crime he committed by driving himself and RFK campaign staffer Mary Jo Kopechne off the road while drunk.

    Yes, the infamous Chappaquiddick “incident” was one of the most peak examples of true “Kennedy class.” Kopechne, incidentally, was moved to enter the political realm in the first place after seeing the JFK inauguration speech during which he pontificated, “…my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” Soon after, Kennedy would bilk the country and its highest office of all the privilege he could get out of it. And what Kopechne ended up doing “for Teddy” rather than her country, unfortunately, was dying. Though, of course, JFK could say the same.

    Luckily for Joe Sr., he still had plenty of children to bet on in the race called Building an American Dynasty. And at the top of the list after Joe Jr.’s death was Jack. A man whose penchant for instinctively sweeping any wrongdoing beneath the rug was not much better than what Teddy exhibited with Chappaquiddick (hence, taking hours to report the accident, and Mary Jo’s death along with it). But what was to be expected of the Kennedy sons when it came to shirking transparency at all costs? They learned from the best burier of secrets and shame, after all: Joe Sr. Better known as the brainchild behind pushing for his daughter, Rosemary, to get a lobotomy because she was prone to having seizures and erratic/violent mood swings. Being that this was 1941, slapping her with the then-current panacea of a lobotomy was, sadly, par for the course. She was just twenty-three when the procedure ended up incapacitating her and preventing her from speaking in a way that could be understood as anything other than gibberish. So what else would Joe Sr. do but clean up the “mess” he made by burying Rosemary’s existence (hiding her whereabouts for decades) in a Wisconsin institution for the disabled? Never mind that Joe Sr. was the one who did the disabling by trying to “fix” a person who wasn’t broken. Again, real fuckin’ “classy.”

    When it comes to the generation of children Joseph Sr. begat, it was apparent that they (particularly the men) were taking a page out of the lawless, devil-may-care playbook he had nonverbally written for them. Most notably when it came to his propensity for stepping outside of his marriage with a celebrity. Even at a time when the very concept of “celebrity” was still germinal in its movie star iteration. Nonetheless, during the silent movie era, there were few bigger precursors to major stardom than Gloria Swanson. And after being among the few to actually increase his bank balance in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, Joe Sr. found himself orbiting the Hollywood scene, buying up stakes in studios and theaters to build on his “portfolio” of wealth.

    It was during this time that he encountered Swanson (in the days before she became Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard)…and proceeded to ruin her life. Not just by ousting her husband at the time, Henri de la Falaise, but also by defrauding her out of millions of dollars after becoming her business manager, in addition to her paramour. It was when Joe decided to gift her with a Cadillac and expense it on her production company’s account that she finally had to call him out. A move that reportedly sent him out the door without ever speaking to her again. With this in mind, John’s behavior toward Marilyn almost looks positively princely (Rodrigo influencer Lana Del Rey also seemed to think the same of his behavior toward Jackie, if the 2012 video for “National Anthem” is anything to go by).

    As the third generation of Kennedys (this being counted from the start of Joe Sr.) rose to prominence, it became quickly apparent that boorish behavior was something that ran in the blood. For JFK’s lone son, John Jr., had his own predilection for extramarital affairs. Only rather than being the married one in the scenario, he preferred to be the paramour. Specifically, to Madonna, who was “legally bound” to Sean Penn at the time of their tryst in 1988. Though Madonna might remind that Penn was a bit of a stick in the mud when it came to having any fun or lapping up the spotlight that went with the territory of being a major celebrity. Made more major by being “attached” to one of the biggest stars in the world. And rather than repelling JFK Jr., as it did Sean, the former seemed to be all the more titillated because of her Marilyn Monroe-level fame…not to mention aesthetic. And yes, Madonna was already well-known for paying homage to one of the twentieth century’s greatest icons early on in her career.

    Perhaps most famously when she re-created the famed “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend” sequence from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes for her “Material Girl” video in 1985. Funnily enough, it was Sean who met and fell in love with Madonna on that set—not John Jr. But that didn’t mean Marilyn’s specter wouldn’t still haunt their eventual relationship. After all, Jackie insisted John call off his romance not because Madonna was a married woman, but because she was way too much of a Marilyn fangirl. With “class” like this, Jackie really had become a full-blown Kennedy.

    Even those roundaboutly connected to the Kennedys couldn’t seem to avoid the taint of uncouthness and/or sexual impropriety. One such prime example being Andrew Cuomo. Married to Kerry Kennedy for fifteen years (from 1990 to 2005), his descent into shame may have taken decades to occur, but when it happened, oh how it happened big. In a scandal that broke at the end of 2020 (just when Cuomo was riding high on praise [most of it self-given] for his handling of the pandemic). In the end, Attorney General Letitia James released the findings of an independent investigative report that stated Cuomo sexually harassed eleven women during his tenure as New York governor (and who knows how many others before that?). Needless to say, some standard-issue male Kennedy bullshit rubbed off on him. That, and probably working within the Clinton administration. Bill himself being a “renowned” acolyte of JFK—managing to get his picture taken with the OG presidential philanderer in 1963.

    While marriage to a Kennedy might turn you corrupt (or at least cause you to compromise some of your erstwhile ironclad “principles) if you weren’t already, being a Kennedy male appeared to all but assure that you could be born into a “high class” and still have no class at all. Most markedly when it came to the treatment of women. Another case in point: William Kennedy Smith, the son of Jean Kennedy/nephew of JFK. Smith was acquitted of a rape charge in 1991 despite potential reams of evidence against him. Evidence that also would have included the testimonies of three women stating on record that Smith had sexually assaulted them in the past. Their testimonies were deemed by Judge Mary Lupo to be inadmissible. After all, American “justice” stipulates that you should only be on trial for the crime you’ve committed, not the many others you’ve committed in the past and gotten away with.

    Then there was Michael LeMoyne Kennedy, son to Bobby. He, too, was another predatory Kennedy. A fact that came to light in 1997, two years before John Jr. died in a plane crash. But Michael had his own crash to deal with after being accused of having an affair with his children’s babysitter. Which wouldn’t be quite so bad if the affair hadn’t started when she was the Lolita age of fourteen. In typical “Kennedy clout” fashion, Michael evaded being charged with statutory rape in part because the three polygraph tests he took were conducted by companies that the Kennedys directly employed. Perhaps the only form of “justice,” then, could come in the skiing accident that resulted in his death at the end of 1997.

    And so, when Olivia Rodrigo perpetuates this bizarre and totally inaccurate trope about the Kennedys having class and integrity, well, it doesn’t bode well for Gen Z unlearning the undeserved association the Kennedys seem to have with “sophistication” and “glamor” in American politics. Something Gloria Swanson, who suffered the fallout of being collateral damage when it came to Kennedy ambition and entitlement, was unafraid to speak on. But that was after decades of silence and being almost on the verge of death. For she would only confess to her affair with Joe Sr. just three years before she passed away, releasing her autobiography (ghostwritten, of course) in 1980.

    “He was not very sophisticated insofar as knowing the right thing to do,” Swanson would “diplomatically” tell Barbara Walters in a 1981 interview promoting the book, called Swanson on Swanson. She then ominously added, “This man accomplished anything he wanted, including putting his son in the White House.” It was an inherited trait, this bulldozing version of “class.” Except that, in America, having class doesn’t really mean you have to be magnanimous. In fact, quite the opposite—it just means you have to be willing to do whatever it takes to secure your fortune.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Olivia Rodrigo Tries to Fill the Hole Where Hole Used to Be

    Olivia Rodrigo Tries to Fill the Hole Where Hole Used to Be

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    As supposed Olivia Rodrigo nemesis Taylor Swift once said, “I come back stronger than a 90s trend.” That’s precisely what’s happened of late in the live performances Rodrigo has been doing in promotion of her Guts album. It started roughly two months ago, when Rodrigo appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to sing “ballad of a home schooled girl” (a timely choice considering the then upcoming release of Mean Girls 2024). Although not exactly outfitted in “Courtney Love circa 1994” attire during this instance, the entire vibe of the performance smacked of Rodrigo’s desire to bring back the raucous stylings of 90s-era frontwomen (e.g., Kathleen Hanna, Justine Frischmann, Shirley Manson), with an especial emphasis on the riot grrrl sound and look (granted, Love was no fan of that mid-90s movement).

    Out of all those “alt-rock” (a cringe-y term that Daria Morgendorffer undoubtedly hated) bands, Courtney Love’s personal style as the frontwoman of Hole was the most visible, aided along by the fact that she was dating (and then married) the “king” of grunge, Kurt Cobain (a name Gen Zers often have no knowledge of despite freely and vexingly sporting Nirvana t-shirts on the regular). While Rodrigo might have adopted solely the “tone” of Love’s performances (albeit more of a Love Lite vibe than an all-out visceral experience) on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, she saved an homage to all-out Hole aesthetics until she appeared on the December 9, 2023 episode of Saturday Night Live.

    Choosing to introduce a new song to the less-versed in her Guts album, Rodrigo followed her stripped-down performance of “vampire” with a more production value-y “all-american bitch.” Outfitted in a pink babydoll dress (this style of frock being Love’s well-known signature around the time of Live Through This), complete with a white, doily-esque collar, Rodrigo sits at a table decorated with cakes and other assorted sweets as she initially sings in her most precious voice while placing sugar cubes into a coffee cup (this, one imagines, will be repurposed again for her Guts Tour, along with babydoll dresses galore). Once the chorus hits, though, she shatters a champagne flute in her hand and proceeds to semi-writhe on the table in a botched attempt at “doing the Madonna at the 1984 VMAs.”

    Rodrigo then briefly goes back to being a “good little girl” before again ramping up the repressed anger she holds back in these moments, finally going all in on decimating the desserts on the table, not just hurtling them aside, but also throwing some of it at the camera and violently stabbing one of the cakes with a knife like she’s stabbing at the patriarchy itself. This blending of Madonna and Courtney Love (notoriously contentious toward one another for a while there) performance sensibilities is perhaps a testament to the pastiche overload of our current time. Something that Rodrigo, like anyone of her generation, can’t help but be a (for lack of a better word) victim of. 

    After loosely returning to her faux sugary sweetness shtick for another verse, Rodrigo once more goes apeshit during the chorus, the entirety of which is: “Forgive and I forget/I know my age and I act like it/Got what you can’t resist/I’m a perfect all-American bitch/With perfect all-American lips/And perfect all-American hips/I know my place, I know my place, and this is it.” The dripping-with-sarcasm aura also smacks of Love’s brand. Most notably on 1994’s “Miss World,” wherein she drones, “I’m Miss World/Somebody kill me/Kill me pills/No one cares, my friends.” In another part of that song, Love belts the chorus, “I’ve made my bed, I’ll lie in it/I’ve made my bed, I’ll die in it/I’ve made my bed, I’ll die in it/I’ve made my bed, I’ll cry in it.” “Coincidentally” enough, this expression is something that crops up in a Rodrigo song on Guts called “making the bed.” The track explores similar self-deprecating themes surrounding fame as Rodrigo laments, “And I’m playin’ the victim so well in my head/But it’s me who’s been makin’ the bed/Me who’s been makin’ the bed/Pull the sheets over my head, yeah/Makin’ the bed.” 

    This is also a song she sang live recently for NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert, rounding out the set of four songs (which additionally included “love is embarrassing,” “vampire” and “lacy”) with this one while wearing what is quickly becoming her own signature babydoll dress. After all, she’s openly stated her favorite fashion era is the 90s, with a budget for “vintage” clothing to support her zeal. Thus (and probably needless to say), Courtney Love would surely be present on the proverbial Pinterest board of that decade’s fashion trends. Accordingly, Rodrigo’s influences on Guts have clearly shifted far more toward the 90s rage of alt-rock than the “happy anger” of 00s pop-punk, which was more palpable on Sour (though that wasn’t without its major “girl rage” 90s influence either: Alanis Morissette—and Alanis gets more play on this album cycle, too…at least visually speaking). This likely due to her declaration that Rage Against the Machine was a key influence on her while recording the album, particularly “all-american bitch.” But as far as promotional performances have gone since Guts was released in September of ‘23, the most overt influence has been purely Love (whether Rodrigo wants to admit to being fully aware of it or not). 

    Some can appreciate this commitment to homage, while others might not necessarily find it quite so “cute” or “endearing.” Although Rodrigo has pointed out that nothing in music is ever new, there is an increasing sense of “watered down-ness” the more the decades go by and people keep “gleaning” from the past. However, as Rodrigo insisted, “Every single artist is inspired by artists who have come before them. It’s sort of a fun, beautiful sharing process. Nothing in music is ever new. There’s four chords in every song. That’s the fun part—trying to make that your own.” 

    Rodrigo does her best to make Hole her own too. Though it’s a prime example of the Narrator (Edward Norton, who, fittingly, once dated Courtney Love) in Fight Club remarking, “Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy.” So if you’re going to copy yourself off of someone, Love isn’t the worst choice—musically or visually. But it still doesn’t quite fill the hole where Hole used to be. 

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Olivia Rodrigo Enters Her Soundtrack Era With “Can’t Catch Me Now” 

    Olivia Rodrigo Enters Her Soundtrack Era With “Can’t Catch Me Now” 

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    Since everyone is in the mood to turn the clock back right now (see also: the Mean Girls x Wal-Mart commercial), it makes sense to give people a taste of going back to the 2012-2015 era by offering a new installment in the The Hunger Games saga: The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. While Jennifer Lawrence ruled the Suzanne Collins-created universe during the aforementioned three-year period (and caught a lot of flak for later dubbing herself the first woman to lead an action movie) as Katniss Everdeen, this time around, the star of the prequel series will be Lucy Gray Baird, as played by Rachel Zegler. The latter of whom has come up quickly in the world of Major Movies after starring in Steven Spielberg’s 2021 adaptation of West Side Story. Just as Olivia Rodrigo, too, has experienced her own meteoric rise in the short two years since 2021, when “drivers license” first came out. 

    In just two short years, she’s achieved many milestones, including being the youngest artist to get three number one singles on the charts (“drivers license,” “good 4 u” and “vampire”), as well as having a record (Sour) that has become the longest-running debut to stay in the top ten of the Billboard 200 album chart. And, of course, she’s already released a sophomore album called Guts (which doesn’t display anything that gutsy, apart from more consciously aligning herself with Lana Del Rey stylings instead of Taylor Swift ones). The only thing she hasn’t done, not really (because we’re not counting High School Musical shit), is write a song specifically for a soundtrack. That is, until now. And since her greatest influences, Alanis Morrisette, Del Rey and Swift have all done that (one of them quite a few times), it was only natural for Rodrigo to finally take on this career challenge. Alas, since there’s no new installments of Twilight on the horizon, Rodrigo apparently needed to settle for the next best mass-marketed book series that would have appealed to her in her preteen years: The Hunger Games. Nothing to turn one’s nose up at, clearly, as Rodrigo has composed a soundtrack offering that rivals some of her best work on any studio album. 

    Entitled “Can’t Catch Me Now,” (which sounds like a sequel to Catch Me If You Can), Rodrigo also follows in the footsteps of her Gen Z contemporary, Billie Eilish (who provided soulful numbers for both No Time To Die and Barbie), by opting for a slow jam to punctuate the dramatic nature of a film such as this. Ostensibly told from the perspective of Lucy as she flees from the wicked clutches of Coriolanus “Coryo” Snow (Tom Blyth), the moody, guitar-laden track is once again produced by Rodrigo’s go-to, Dan Nigro. Commencing with a gentle arrangement of guitar strings, Rodrigo paints the picture, “There’s blood on the side of the mountain/There’s writing all over the wall/Shadows of us are still dancin’/In every room and every hall/There’s snow fallin’ over the city/You thought that it would wash away/The bitter taste of my fury/And all of the messes you made/Yeah, you think that you got away.”

    In truth, the song sounds like any angst-ridden Rodrigo number that seeks to invoke guilt on the part of the man who has wronged her, peppered with occasional warnings that vengeance will be hers in the end. To boot, it also possesses a certain “Carolina” by Taylor Swift tinge (this being the song Swift wrote for the Where the Crawdads Sing Soundtrack). Not just because both are slow-tempoed and dripping with accusatory venom, but because each ultimately tells a story about a girl who is left no choice but to retreat into the feral wilderness. The only place where she can ever truly be free. Swift, too, sings from the perspective of the story’s protagonist, Kya Clark, as she declares, “​​And you didn’t see me here/No, they never did see me here/And she’s in my dreams/Into the mist, into the clouds/Don’t leave/I’ll make a fist, I’ll make it count/And there are places I will never ever go.” Namely, anywhere near so-called civilization. The same can be said for Lucy, who eventually sees Snow for what he is: a tyrant and an asshole. And, yes, it seems appropriate that with a last name like Snow, Rodrigo should make mention of winter when she says, “Bet you thought I’d never do it/Thought it’d go over my head/I bet you figured I’d pass with the winter/Be somethin’ easy to forget/Oh, you think I’m gone ’cause I left.” But oh no, Lucy is right there, according to Rodrigo, haunting the trees—whether as a specter or through the mockingjays that parrot back Coryo calling out her name. 

    With Rodrigo/Lucy promising the erstwhile object of her affection that he won’t ever be able to forget her no matter how hard he tries, Swift’s influence again hovers over the song. After all, she’s always making promises like that after a jilting, e.g., “You search in every maiden’s bed for somethin’ greater, baby” (“Is It Over Now?”), “​​But now that we’re done and it’s over/I bet you couldn’t believe/When you realized I’m harder to forget than I was to leave/And I bet you think about me” (“I Bet You Think About Me”). 

    The sense of unbridled freedom that Rodrigo and Swift imbue within the protagonist whose point of view they’re embodying is also worth remarking upon. In “Carolina,” Swift details, “Carolina knows why, for years, I roam/Free as these birds, light as whispers/Carolina knows.” There’s a similar portrait drawn by Rodrigo in “Can’t Catch Me Now” when she warbles, “But I’m in the trees, I’m in the breeze/My footsteps on the ground/You’ll see my face in every place/But you can’t catch me now.” The idea is that each woman exists in nature, becoming an intrinsic part of it. So that no matter what happens, she’ll always live on “in the trees” and “in the breeze,” as Rodrigo puts it.

    Indeed, there’s something Native American-spirited in a philosophy like that, also presented when Rodrigo warns, “Through wading grass, the months will pass/You’ll feel it all around/I’m here, I’m there, I’m everywhere.” Unlike Paul McCartney in “Here, There and Everywhere,” when he says, “I want her everywhere, and if she’s beside me/I know I need never care/But to love her is to need her everywhere,” Coryo isn’t liable to be as “excited” by the prospect of Lucy’s omnipresence. Regardless, as McCartney also sings (for, clearly, this song influenced Rodrigo’s lyrics), Lucy is essentially claiming, “I will be there and everywhere/Here, there and everywhere.” Just as “Can’t Catch Me Now” will be for the next few months as it climbs the charts amid reinvigorated The Hunger Games fever.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • While Lana Del Rey Says That Not Everything Is About Whatever You Want It To Be, Olivia Rodrigo Says It’s Not Her Job to Interpret Songs for People

    While Lana Del Rey Says That Not Everything Is About Whatever You Want It To Be, Olivia Rodrigo Says It’s Not Her Job to Interpret Songs for People

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    In the September issue of Rolling Stone, Olivia Rodrigo graces the cover for the first time. A self-declared Lana Del Rey protégée (this after an ostensible “cooling” on Taylor Swift), Rodrigo has more recently fashioned herself as a similar singer-songwriter, prone to singing with the same candor and poetical musings (the most “Del Reyian” lyrics on Guts are likely from “all-american bitch,” during which Rodrigo name-checks both Coca-Cola and the Kennedys by saying, “Coca-Cola bottles that I only use to curl my hair/I got class and integrity/Just like a goddamn Kennedy, I swear”). But whereas Rodrigo is taking a much more Britney Spears circa 1998-2003 approach to how the public sees her (which is to say, she’s fine with being a cipher that people, especially girls, can project emotions and interpretations onto), Del Rey has often been dogmatic about how she wants to be perceived (see: lambasting music critic Ann Powers in 2019 for mentioning that Del Rey has a persona).

    Over the years, there has been no shortage of “Del Rey clapbacks” at critics and fans alike (though “fan” will have to get put in quotation marks if anyone dares question their “Lord and Savior”). Surprising “trolls” by responding directly in such a way as to draw them into the spotlight as much as her, Del Rey was especially responsive toward any negative comments after her infamous “question for the culture” in May of 2020. Accused, rightly so, of being racist in her non sequitur open letter about how other women (all women of color except for Ariana Grande, who still tries to “pass” as one) are praised for doing the same things she gets condemned for, Del Rey was quick to lash out at the “tainting” of her words by saying, “Bro. This is sad to make it about a WOC issue when I’m talking about my favorite singers… I don’t care anymore but don’t ever ever ever ever bro—call me racist because that is bullshit… And my last and final note on everything—when I said people who look like me—I meant the people who don’t look strong or necessarily smart or like they’re in control. It’s about advocating for a more delicate personality, not for white women—thanks for the Karen comments tho. V helpful.” Naturally, what’s not “V helpful” is Del Rey refusing to look at any other interpretations of what she says and sings, and why people might be interpreting them a certain way. Instead, she’s convinced that her “good intentions” are all that matters in everything. In fact, she also stated during this time that she believes she’s absolutely good-intentioned in everything she does. But, as it is said, that’s what the road to hell is paved with. 

    Of late, Del Rey has been more consistently on a path to (#sayyesto) heaven, as most of her controversies from 2020 and 2021 (during the latter year, she seemed to want a medal for her “inclusivity cover” for Chemtrails Over the Country Club) have blown over as she’s gone on to become worshiped as “Mother” by Gen Z. Particularly on TikTok, despite Del Rey being “too old” now to be deemed as relevant as the women who claim her as a key influence—Olivia Rodrigo included. Indeed, after introducing her at the Billboard Women in Music Awards earlier this year, Rodrigo has been having an open love affair with Del Rey, declaring things like, “Lana’s work taught me how effective sentimentality can be in songwriting. She defies any stereotypes of what a woman writing pop songs should or shouldn’t be. She’s constantly pushing boundaries and making work that is fresh, adventurous and unabashedly feminine.”

    This is an interesting take considering much of what Del Rey puts out is actually heavily borrowed, particularly from 60s-era singers (at least Amy Winehouse freely admitted that’s what she was doing). The same goes for Rodrigo herself, whose entire oeuvre thus far (music videos included) has been one giant pastiche orgy (though one largely has the principles of capitalism to thank for this lack of originality). Del Rey has exhibited the same sense of pastiche over the years (albeit with slightly more subtlety than Rodrigo), carving a name for herself as a “singular mind” in the industry. As such, she’s readily played into the hand of this newly-embraced “mentor role,” labeling herself as a big sister type (“I always felt like the older sister to pretty much everyone I ever met”) in an interview for The Hollywood Reporter smugly titled, “Lana Del Rey Forgives You.” Even if what’s actually happened is “the culture” has mostly chosen to forget and/or move on from her past indiscretions. Just as people have already moved on from Olivia Rodrigo’s “blaccent” and Billie Eilish’s use of the word “chink.” That’s the thing about “the culture” sometimes: it has the memory of an ostrich. Or simply can’t be bothered to hold a grudge for very long (even Ye could eventually rise from the ashes). 

    After Rodrigo gushed about Del Rey’s “boundary pushing” and divine sense of femininity, Del Rey, in turn, pronounced her own affections for the next generation of singer-songwriters she “raised.” This by telling The Hollywood Reporter, “Billie and Olivia are such good people, it’s fucking awesome. I love them and their music. It’s not like you have to be nice to be good [in music]. But, if you happen to be nice and a great singer, it makes me happy for the culture.” 

    This is a far cry from her assertion three years ago that, “The culture is super sick right now.” And not “sick” in a good way. No one is arguing that there’s an inherent state of rot in our society (especially in American society), but for Del Rey to brand something as sick simply to make it about being a reflection of how she felt misinterpreted is part of what she calls the “world’s greatest problem”: narcissism. 

    After her words being “skewed” in that “question for the culture,” Del Rey was also eager to announce, “​​This is the problem with society today, not everything is about whatever you want it to be.” Firstly, that’s hardly the problem with society today, and secondly, this merely proves that Del Rey has no awareness beyond her own myopic view of herself. Naively (or perhaps braggadociously) assuming that her subjective view of things, including her music, is “one size fits all.” It’s a view that seems to be further insulated by the cabal she surrounds herself with (mostly, her father, sister, brother and Jack Antonoff). That she can’t even stop for a second to think how something like her “question for the culture” could be so “misconstrued” is more telling of her tone deafness than a cultural sickness. 

    As for Rodrigo, who’s been the subject of her own endless public dissection lately (whether of her personal life and the lyrics that refer to it), she chose to take an entirely different tack by telling Rolling Stone, “People are going to say what they want to say. I feel like the more you try to control it, the more miserable you are [ergo, Del Rey being a resident “sad girl”], and the bigger it gets. I just write songs; it’s not my job to interpret them for other people.” Del Rey hasn’t quite let go of that “job,” whether it’s safeguarding the meaning of her lyrics or defending her foot-in-mouth open letters to the public. Perhaps it’s the symptom of a generational divide between the two.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • “Get Him Back!” Offers Little In the Way of Satisfying Revenge and A Lot in the Way of Imitating Alanis’ “Ironic” Video

    “Get Him Back!” Offers Little In the Way of Satisfying Revenge and A Lot in the Way of Imitating Alanis’ “Ironic” Video

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    There’s no irony to the fact that Olivia Rodrigo has decided to craft the majority of her latest video in the very distinct style of what was done in 1996’s “Ironic” (with the song itself unleashed in 1995 via Jagged Little Pill). After all, this is the girl who oughta (and does) know that a song like “good 4 u” owes just as much debt to Alanis Morissette as any of the other people she gives official credit to on said track (e.g., Hayley Williams). This likely being why one of the “Musicians on Musicians” cover stories for Rolling Stone back in 2021 had Alanis and Olivia paired together for an interview/filmed conversation that explored, among other topics, how their musical styles align (perhaps to Morissette’s chagrin). But now, thanks to Rodrigo’s overzealous love of “homage” (which is often a symptom of capitalism creating the conditions in which nothing can ever be new), their visual styles have aligned as well. 

    At the outset of “get him back!,” however, we don’t immediately see the overt line drawn from the “Ironic” video to this one. Instead, Rodrigo (swapping out her usual music video director, Petra Collins, in favor of Jack Begert) starts things off with the image of a blurred-out male figure. Who could just as easily be the same “non-person” viewers were presented with at the end of “bad idea right?” Whether or not this is Rodrigo’s bid to let girls “fill in the blank” literally as they channel their rage toward whatever fuckboy has disappointed them most recently is left up to the viewer. What isn’t, on the other hand, is how obviously Rodrigo wants to re-create the “Ironic” video after a few scenes of deliberating in her apartment (with various other Rodrigos marching in and out of the space). Spinning around in circles, so to speak, over how, exactly, one would go about the task described by the song title. And if what one actually means by “get him back” is to seek revenge or try to make up and reinstate the fuckboy in her life. For the most part, Rodrigo leans toward the former (though her moments of weakness in wanting the guy back are apparent on tracks like the aforementioned “bad idea right?”). 

    Which is why she (after emulating the same “rotating set” effect of that 1994 CK One commercial meets the Smashing Pumpkins’ “Ava Adore” video [side note: Rodrigo already borrowed from “1979” for “traitor”]) ends up leaving the abode to go on a telekinetic car window-bashing bender. Barring the shattered glass everywhere, it becomes a scene similar to the car-filled abyss that appears at the end of the video for “brutal.” After all, Rodrigo is the only other singer at this moment in time who can give Charli XCX a run for her money on being a little bit car crazy in her lyrics and aesthetics (call it a symptom of being from California). Initially, she takes to the street (conveniently filled with plenty of randomly parked vehicles in the middle of it) on her own, but the viewer soon sees that she’s joined by three other Olivias. Much the same way that Alanis is joined by three other Alanises before she gets into her 1978 Lincoln Continental Mark V in “Ironic.” Of course, we don’t immediately see that Morissette has three other “friends” (alter egos, pieces of her personality, visual manifestations of her DID, or mere hallucinatory visions—however you want to describe it). 

    Instead, director Stéphane Sednaoui (known for videos with the kind of versatility that appealed to Garbage, Björk and Madonna in the 90s) takes his time about unveiling each of the three “fellow” Alanises in the car. Who are pointedly set apart by their costuming (unlike the various Rodrigos in “get him back!,” who are all wearing a white crop top and ruffled-hem mini skirt). Starting with Green Sweater Alanis, who makes her appearance around the forty-second mark of the video, when Red Beanie Alanis (call her “the real” Alanis) adjusts her rearview mirror as she asks, “Isn’t it ironic? Dontcha think?” Green Sweater Alanis is quick to agree by belting out, “It’s like rain on your wedding day/It’s a free ride when you’ve already paid/It’s the good advice that ya just can’t take/And who would’ve thought: it figures?”

    Green Sweater Alanis is then upstaged by Yellow Sweater/Braided Hair Alanis, who recounts, “Mr. Play-It-Safe was afraid to fly/He packed his suitcase and kissed his kids goodbye/He waited his whole damn life to take that flight/And as the plane crashed down/He thought, ‘Well, isn’t this nice?’” Sednaoui then cuts to the final Alanis, Red Sweater Alanis, in the front seat, who, just as the others, happens to be fidgeting about like an impetuous child. Even though, years after the video came out, Morissette would differentiate Green Sweater Alanis as “fun and frolic-y,” the Yellow Sweater Alanis as the “quirkster” and the Red Sweater Alanis as “the romantic—wistful and thoughtful and also the risk-taker” (hence, sticking half her body out of the car window [revealing that she’s also wearing pajama pants]). 

    The editing techniques used to convey that all four iterations of Alanis are interacting with one another (in addition to the viewers themselves as they stare earnestly into the camera) were far more effective than any of the special effects seen in “get him back!” This includes the constantly blurred-out boy in question that Rodrigo wants to, that’s right, get back (in more ways than one). He shows up again as the glass to all the car windows surrounding them shatters, with Begert transitioning to the next scene through one of those broken windows that leads us inside a car that now has three Olivias in it with the blurred-out boy as the driver of a car featuring a license plate that reads: GUTSY (a nod, naturally, to her sophomore album title). 

    But, in truth, there’s nothing “gutsy” whatsoever about this video—from being a rip-off of Alanis’ most iconic visual to the fact that no aspect of “revenge” is displayed in any way (maybe because SZA already freshly “paid homage” to Kill Bill, so that was out for Rodrigo). Unless you count 1) property damage to other people’s cars (how Beyoncé in “Hold Up”) or 2) sitting in a room full of purple (she clearly loves the color as much as Prince did) petals while plucking off one petal at a time from a single rose à la “he loves me, he loves me not” as somehow tantamount to claiming vengeance. Then again, maybe imitating Alanis is some mastermind (no Taylor reference intended) form of retribution. Because who will ever write a song as vicious as “You Oughta Know” for someone as unworthy of its passion as Dave Coulier? So maybe Rodrigo figures just trying to be (visually) like Alanis during her Jagged Little Pill era is the closest to “great revenge” she’ll ever get.

    That said, at the two-minute, thirty-three-second mark, we see all four Olivias in the car (with one of them now replacing the blurred-out boy who formerly sat in the driver’s seat [call it something like symbolism]) to really, ugh, drive home the point that this has become “Ironic” to a tee. Except without Rodrigo bothering to give us any costume changes for the sake of differentiating the Olivias. Perhaps because there is no distinction between any of her “facets”; all of them are mere amalgamations of the women who have come before. Including, needless to say, Morissette. 

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Sour Part Deux: Guts Builds On Olivia Rodrigo’s Favorite Subjects (Fuckboys, Lost Causes and Aesthetic Insecurities)

    Sour Part Deux: Guts Builds On Olivia Rodrigo’s Favorite Subjects (Fuckboys, Lost Causes and Aesthetic Insecurities)

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    When the album artwork for Guts was first released, many were quick to call out the similarities to the color palette and overall “vibe” it shared with Sour. Perhaps this was a more deliberate choice than people realized, what with Olivia Rodrigo herself calling the music of Guts a “natural progression” from the work we heard on Sour. To be sure, it does often feel more like a continuation of Sour than a completely separate entity. Sort of like what happened when Lana Del Rey released the Paradise EP the same year as Born to Die and then created a Paradise Edition of the latter album with all the same tracks from the former tacked on at the end. But twelve songs is too much to do that so here we are with Guts as the “full-on” sophomore record. 

    Talking of Lana Del Rey, it’s evident that Rodrigo spending a bit of time with her earlier this year has had an effect. Even if she wrote a song like “all-american bitch”—a title that smacks of something out of the LDR songbook—before that little Billboard Women in Music moment they shared together. With tinges of the same intonation that was present on “enough for you,” the kickoff to Guts starts out “sweetly” enough… and then, of course, bursts into an upbeat expression of rage that drips with sarcasm as she evokes images of Americana that include, “Coca-Cola bottles that I only use to curl my hair [how Lady Gaga in the “Telephone” video]/I got class and integrity just like a goddamn Kennedy, I swear/With love to spare.” While Del Rey might be notoriously Team Pepsi (thanks to asserting, “My pussy tastes like Pepsi Cola), it’s no secret that she’s had her own Kennedy fetish when it comes to describing America and its state of constant underlying decay (see: the “National Anthem” video). Although the song (or at least its title) was inspired, technically, by Joan Didion’s short story, “Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” the overtones of Del Rey are everywhere.

    For the coup de grâce of Del Rey emulation, Rodrigo finishes the song by sardonically mentioning, “I’m pretty when I cry.” This being just one in a series of ways that Rodrigo mocks the enduring expectation that women should live up to impossible dichotomies in their “persona.” Hence, an analogy like, “And I am built like a mother and a total machine.” And then, of course, “I am light as a feather and stiff as a board.” An inconceivable combination that only levitating—ergo, witchcraft—can conjure. And we all know how men feel about witches (hint: they like to burn them). This appearing to be the obvious reason for why Rodrigo would make a reference to The Craft (hopefully the original, and not the one of “her generation”).

    In another part of the song, Rodrigo insists, “Oh, all the time, I’m grateful all the time (all the fucking time).” Although it is theoretically dripping with venom, Rodrigo does mention frequently that she’s so grateful for being able to do what she does. In fact, on the release day of Guts, she posted a handwritten letter stating, “…I feel so grateful. I feel grateful for everyone on my team who believes in me & supports me so unwaveringly.” Even before that, Rodrigo’s mention of gratitude came up in time for the album’s promotion cycle during “73 Questions with Vogue.” When asked by the interviewer, “What values do you hope you’ll still hold on to when you’re thirty-five years old?” she replied, “I hope I still have my gratitude.” Even if that gratitude is occasionally filled with the resentment apparent on “all-american bitch.”

    Proving that there’s a certain schizophrenia to the way women both despise and yet also cling to men, Rodrigo presents the contrasting sentiments of “bad idea right?” as the song after “all-american bitch.” A self-loathing anthem for any girl who has ever gone over to an ex’s (whether of the “serious” or mere “situationship” variety) in the middle of the night thanks to alcohol’s diabolical influence, its pop-punk sound feels plucked directly from an 00s teen movie. This is punctuated by the Petra Collins-directed video that mostly takes place at a house party before Rodrigo foolishly decides to leave on her quest for toxic dick despite claims of, “Yes, I know that he’s my ex/But can’t two people reconnect?/I only see him as a friend” and then quickly admitting, “The biggest lie I ever said.” Though some would argue that the biggest lie she ever said is that “vampire” is not about Taylor Swift. Except, she didn’t say it flat-out, instead dancing around a total “no” with, “I was very surprised when people thought that. I mean, I never want to say who any of my songs are about. I’ve never done that before in my career and probably won’t. I think it’s better to not pigeonhole a song to being about this one thing.” Swift might have once been the same, but eventually, she revealed who “Bad Blood” was about, didn’t she?

    In any case, if “all-american bitch” is a sonic parallel to “enough for you,” then “vampire” is Guts’ parallel to Sour’s “drivers license.” A lush, effusive ballad that also reaches a crescendo of emotionalism toward the middle, whoever the track is “really” about, it’s certain they might be rethinking their vampiric tendencies after hearing it (though probably not, knowing how socios operate). So might any “fame fuckers” in general. A term that Rodrigo was told she shouldn’t use if she wanted to be as “relatable” as she was on Sour (before the “fame monster” took hold). Nonetheless, in her interview with Phoebe Bridgers for, what else, Interview, Rodrigo shrugged, “…fame is more accessible than it has ever been. Everyone is yearning for some sort of internet virality, and there’s so much social climbing and lust for fame in the world that doesn’t have anything to do with living in L.A. or New York. It’s just prevalent in our generation.” One wonders what Joan Didion would have to say about that if she had been Rodrigo’s age in this time.

    The trend in songs “about people” continues with even more specificity on “lacy.” Except that the girl named Lacy in this song is a general embodiment of any proverbial “hot girl” that can inflict feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing in other women. Something the unnamed narrator in Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation knows all about. To that end, there’s never much consideration for the effortlessly hot girl’s own difficulties in being automatically hated for being hot (think: Kelly LeBrock in the Pantene commercial saying, “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful). But that’s not who we’re here to sympathize with on this track. Because Rodrigo knows there are far more “ugly” girls out there who will relate as she sings, “Lacy, oh, Lacy, it’s like you’re out to get me/You poison every little thing that I do/Lacy, oh, Lacy, I just loathe you lately/And I despise my jealous eyes and how hard they fell for you/Yeah, I despise my rotten mind and how much it worships you.” 

    To continue drawing the parallels from the songs on Sour to the ones on Guts, “lacy” is the obvious companion to “jealousy jealousy” (as is “pretty isn’t pretty”). And a name like Lacy does suggest a certain frilliness and daintiness. This further corroborated by Rodrigo describing Lacy as having “skin like puff pastry” (though that sounds like it would be kind of gross and cellulite-textured). And yes, the Del Rey influence continues to flicker in and out with keywords like “ribbons” and “daisies” that also show up in this track.

    The pace picks up again on “ballad of a homeschooled girl,” during which Rodrigo returns to her more “rock-infused” tone while giving voice to an underserved sect of humanity when it comes to pop culture offerings that are relatable. Describing the many unique woes of the homeschooled girl, being socially awkward is chief among them. Indeed, Rodrigo has stated that she lived a rather quiet life prior to all this fame and attention hitting her like a ton of bricks. Surely her contemporary and fellow homeschooled girl, Billie Eilish, feels the same. And yet, what both women have actually ended up doing is advocating for home school as a path to musical fame. After all, you have enough time to yourself to “create” and not get caught up in the bullshit of deliberately manufactured social dramas. Some of which a “homeschooled jungle freak”—as Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) is called in Mean Girls—can end up causing as a result of her social ineptitude whenever she dares to “go outside.” Thus, the chorus, “I broke a glass, I tripped and fell/I told secrets I shouldn’t tell/I stumbled over all my words/I made it weird, I made it worse/Each time I step outside/It’s social suicide/It’s social suicide/Wanna curl up and die/It’s social suicide.” The use of “social suicide,” of course, being a nod to Damian (Daniel Franzese) in the aforementioned Mean Girls (since Rodrigo clearly fancies herself a millennial at heart) telling Cady that joining the Mathletes is social suicide. Something she didn’t pick up on herself as a result of being homeschooled.

    And yet, it was obviously homeschooling that fortified her path to fame (especially while having a set tutor during High School Musical: The Musical). A phenomenon she’s already starting to grapple with, as we hear on “making the bed.” An overt nod to the old adage, “You made your bed, now lie in it,” Rodrigo knows that although she did everything in her power to become famous, she’s now struggling with the unforeseen “disadvantages” of it. Even though just about every pop star before her has sung a song about this very conundrum (from Madonna with “Drowned World/Substitute for Love” to Britney Spears with “Lucky” and “Piece of Me,” and now, to Billie Eilish with “NDA”). Though fewer have spoken of the ways in which “money changes everything” for the worse rather than the better when it comes to making art. Eilish, on her own sophomore record, immediately acknowledges this idea that the pressure of money becoming so involved in how one creates their art can automatically taint the enjoyment of it. So it is that she sings, “Things I once enjoyed/Just keep me employed now.”

    Rodrigo builds on that sentiment similarly via the lyrics, “Another thing I ruined I used to do for fun” and “Every good thing has turned into something I dread.” Alluding to the song that launched her into the spotlight in the first place, Rodrigo also makes heavy-handed driving references in the lines, “And every night, I wake up from this one recurrin’ dream/Where I’m drivin’ through the city, and the brakes go out on me/I can’t stop at the red light, I can’t swerve off the road/I read somewhere it’s ’cause my life feels so out of control.”

    Delivering the chorus with such heart-wrenching sincerity that her plebeian listeners feel like they might almost understand how horrendous fame can be, Rodrigo explains, “Well, sometimes I feel like I don’t wanna be where I am/Gettin’ drunk at a club with my fair-weather friends/Push away all the people who know me the best/But it’s me who’s been makin’ the bed.” Indeed, “making the bed” is another peak Pisces moment for Rodrigo in that she knows how to feel sorry for herself while also being aware that the pain is mostly self-inflicted. She speaks to this reality by adding, “And I’m playin’ the victim so well in my head/But it’s me who’s been makin’ the bed/Me who’s been makin’ the bed/Pull the sheets over my head, yeah.” But at least they’re probably very high thread-count sheets. And yeah, like Ariana once declared, “Whoever said money can’t solve your problems/Must not have had enough money to solve ‘em.” Rodrigo, incidentally, does give a dash of an homage to “7 rings” at the beginning of “making the bed” by saying, “Want it, so I got it.”

    The same can’t be said for whatever boy du jour has abandoned her. For while she may have “gotten” him for the moment, he always ends up slipping through her fingers and generally disappointing her anyway. While also obliterating her already fragile self-esteem for good measure. To that end, the ballad vibe continues with “logical,” a piano-heavy number that thematically channels “1 step forward, 3 steps back,” “enough for you” and “favorite crime.” It also serves as the first in a quartet of songs (followed by “get him back!,” “love is embarrassing” and “the grudge”) with an overt running motif. Always related to some asshole who done her wrong. For, as Rodrigo’s roundabout mentor, Del Rey, noted during a pre-interview at the Billboard Women in Music Awards, much of the “world building” on women’s albums comes from boyfriends. So at least they’re good for something, right?

    Her flourish for simple mathematics (again, “1 step forward, 3 steps back”) is a big part of the song’s chorus as well, prompting her to belt out, “And now you got me thinkin’/Two plus two equals five/And I’m the love of your life/‘Cause if rain don’t pour and sun don’t shine/Then changing you is possible/No, love is never logical.” Said like someone who has only ever known toxic relationships. Which are especially easy to come by at Rodrigo’s age, as all the late twenties men come to her yard (something Eilish has experienced, too). Besides, it’s as Rodrigo says on “vampire”: “Girls your age know better.” In many regards, “logical” does feel like the “addendum” to “vampire,” emphasized by the same words and visuals being used. Namely, “You built a giant castle/With walls so high I couldn’t see/The way it all unraveled/And all the things you did to me/You lied, you lied, you lied, oh.”

    Enter the need to “get him back!” as retribution for all those lies. Alas, in true Rodrigo fashion, the phrase has a double meaning—on the one hand referring to revenge and, on the other, actually getting him back in her life. The panoply of conflicted feelings about whether she loves him or hates him reaches a zenith in the lengthy bridge (delivered, like the chorus, in that child choir-y voice that’s present on songs like “Youth of the Nation”), during which she says, among other negating things, “Wanna kiss his face…with an uppercut” and “I wanna meet his mom…just to tell her her son sucks.” This latter sentiment giving Del Rey on “A&W” when she taunts, “Your mom called/I told her you’re fucking up big time.” Because, clearly, the way a mother raises her son is the largest reflection of why he is the way he is (that is to day, a cad). Cardi B also seems to agree on “Thru Your Phone” when she raps, “I just want to break up all your shit, call your mama phone/Let her know that she raised a bitch/Then dial tone, click.” This, needless to say, can be a quite effective method for “getting him back.”

    As the song that’s slated to be her third single from the record, the video potential for it is ripe for male mockery (and, of course, car keying). What the world always needs more of, considering how self-serious and reckless with others’ emotions men continue to be. This being part of why, well, “love is embarrassing” (even though it’s more like Sky Ferreira said: “everything is embarrassing”). Or, more to the point, “straight love is embarrassing.” Because how could any self-respecting woman allow herself to be duped both so frequently and so spectacularly for the sake of some subpar (supposedly) hetero male?

    The uptempo, Bruce Springsteen-y song paints a picture that’s typical of Rodrigo’s doomed love life as she opens with, “I told my friends you were the one/After I’d known you like a monthAnd then you kissed some girl from high school/And I stayed in bed for like a week/When you said space was what you need.” That last line echoing Rodrigo’s so-called nemesis, Taylor Swift, when she says on one of her own many breakup songs, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” “We hadn’t seen each other in a month/When you said you needed space/What?” Unlike Swift, however, Rodrigo is more adept at delivering a chirpy-sounding chorus that belies the rage she’s expressing in the lyrics. For example, “‘Causе now it don’t mean a thing/God, love’s fuckin’ embarrassin’/Just watch as I crucify myself/For some weird second-string/Loser who’s not worth mentioning/My God, love’s embarrassing as hell.” Apart from the religious metaphor, Rodrigo also references her “bad idea right?” video with the “loser who’s not worth mentioning” line, for that’s what the ex is listed as in her contacts when he calls her.

    To boot, Rodrigo, for someone who still has so few albums, keeps finding ways to be self-referential. This includes her accusing, “You found a new version of me,” a patent repurposing of the sentiments of “deja vu.” She finishes the song by channeling “late era” Kesha vibes with her outro as she further self-berates, “I’m plannin’ out my wedding with some guy I’m never marryin’/I’m givin’ up, I’m givin’ up, but I keep comin’ back for more.” Such is the way of the masochistic Pisces. And perhaps most women (regardless of their zodiac sign) in general. 

    Slowing it down again on “the grudge,” Rodrigo takes us back into “traitor” territory (including use of the word “betray”) as she goes off on yet another (or perhaps always the same) asshole who mistreated her. Unraveling all the resentment she’s tried to let go of, but can only keep holding on to (like Saul’s [Bob Odenkirk] brother, Chuck [Michael McKean], on Better Call Saul), Rodrigo bemoans, “And I try to be tough, but I wanna scream/How could anybody do the things you did so easily?” That latter demand appearing constantly in some form or another throughout her canon, whether it’s Sour or Guts. She then admits, “And I say I don’t care, I say that I’m fine/But you know I can’t let it go/I’ve tried, I’ve tried, I’ve tried for so long/It takes strength to forgive, but I don’t feel strong.” Cue Sheryl Crow asking, “Are you strong enough to be my man” (as opposed to weak enough to make others feel just as weak)? The answer being that the amount of weaklings has only intensified since Crow made that query back in 1993.

    Rodrigo then veers back into her other favorite song topic: aesthetic insecurity. With its The Cure-esque interpretation of “upbeat rhythm,” “Pretty Isn’t Pretty” is the Guts edition of “jealousy jealousy” and Rodrigo’s version of TLC’s “Unpretty” and Beyoncé’s “Pretty Hurts.” Addressing the same dilemmas of “jealousy jealousy,” Rodrigo offers a more mature track detailing the psychological ramifications of comparing oneself to other women, usually because of social media. Among the most relatable lyrics to a girl of any age are, “I could change up my body, and change up my face/I could try every lipstick in every shade/But I’d always feel the same/‘Cause pretty isn’t pretty enough anyway.” It’s in this song, too, that she wields the same line about trying to ignore something, which then only causes it to bubble up and explode to the surface all the more. Hence, “You can win the battle/But you’ll never win the war/You fix thе things you hated/And you’d still feel so insecure/And I try to ignorе it, but it’s everythin’ I see.”

    Despite some saying that Rodrigo’s feelings of insecurity are emblematic of an age she’ll grow out of, “teenage dream” is a direct assault on that notion. As the closer for the standard edition of the record (the deluxe one forthcoming), the melancholic “teenage dream” (watch out, Katy Perry) rounds out Guts with tinges of what Rodrigo already explored on “brutal” (complete with use of the phrase “teenage dream”), during which she spews, “And I’m so sick of seventeen/Where’s my fucking teenage dream?/If someone tells me one more time, ‘Enjoy your youth’/I’m gonna cry.” Here, too, she despises the drawbacks of being young, which mainly consists of “not being taken seriously” and having one’s feelings perpetually invalidated. Little does she know, it’s like that for a woman at any age.

    Rodrigo then returns to her paralyzing fear that becoming famous was a huge mistake, inquiring, “Will I spend all the rest of my years wishing I could go back?” Del Rey delves into that same existential question and then some on “White Dress” when she sings, “I was a waitress wearing a tight dress/Like, look how I do this, look how I got this/It made me feel, made me feel like a god/It kinda makes me feel, like maybe I was better off.” Del Rey also mentions being nineteen in the song, the same age Rodrigo was while recording Guts. It seems to be one of the more underrated “growing pains” ages for women as they transition into something like “adulthood,” but still not quite (#imnotagirlnotyetawoman). Ergo, Rodrigo chanting (as she speaks to the crushing pressures of instant success), “They all say that it gets better/It gets better the more you grow/Yeah, they all say that it gets better/It gets better, but what if I don’t?”

    Of course, it’s difficult to believe things won’t keep getting better for Rodrigo, at least for a little while as she remains “a pretty young thing” (both “to guys” and society at large). It’s only when she breezes past the ingenue phase that she might genuinely have to “apologize” to the masses, “And I’m sorry that I couldn’t always be your teenage dream.” Such is the cruelty of romanticizing and exalting teen girlhood. It sets all teen girls up for becoming nothing more than chaff in the harshly judging eyes of “humanity.”

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • “bad idea right?”: Olivia Rodrigo Asks The Same Question As Forebears Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift and Katy Perry (Not To Mention Drunk Women Everywhere)

    “bad idea right?”: Olivia Rodrigo Asks The Same Question As Forebears Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift and Katy Perry (Not To Mention Drunk Women Everywhere)

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    Giving listeners a taste of something that diverges from the (initially) ballad-y sound of Guts’ lead single, “vampire,” Olivia Rodrigo opts for a more “brutal”-esque tone on her second offering from the record, “bad idea right?” A release pattern that matches what she did with Sour by presenting “deja vu” after the slow, bemoaning jam that is “drivers license.” “good 4 u” and “brutal” would then further establish her knack for “angst you can dance to.”

    The same goes for “bad idea right?,” which is similar to “brutal” in that both songs are “upbeat” while being filled with self-doubt and self-contempt. In this way, Rodrigo confirms more than ever that she’s a Pisces with her back-and-forth waffling about hooking up with an ex during a drunken night of folly. And yes, as a Pisces, of course she’s going to opt for the more self-destructive route. As for the title, if it sounds rather familiar, perhaps you’ll recognize (most of) it from another water sign’s oeuvre. Specifically, Ariana Grande’s thank u, next record, which places “bad idea” at track six. Bearing sentiments that are akin to Rodrigo’s on “bad idea right?,” Grande has her own “fuck it” attitude when she sings, “I got a bad idea/Yeah, I’ma call you over here to numb the pain” and “Yeah, I know we shouldn’t, baby, but we will (you know we will)/Need somebody, gimme something I can feel/But, boy, don’t trip/You know this isn’t real/You should know I’m temporary.” 

    Rodrigo also wants to get that intention across with the many caveats she spreads throughout her own sonically delivered bad idea. So it is that she lies to herself, “Yes, I know that he’s my ex/But can’t two people reconnect?/I only see him as a friend/The biggest lie I ever said.” Elsewhere adding an “Oops!…I Did It Again” sort of flourish with, “I just tripped and fell into his bed.” The notion of lying/being a liar in this particular song for once applies to Rodrigo instead of the erstwhile object of her affection. Case in point, her accusation in “traitor,” which opens with, “Brown guilty eyes and little white lies.” Or the one in “vampire” that goes, “How do you lie without flinching?/(How do you lie, how do you lie, how do you lie?).” The point being that Rodrigo is fine with lies in “bad idea right?” so long as they only involve the ones she tells herself in order to engage in some “guilty pleasure” sex with an ex. 

    As for the video (once again directed by Petra Collins) to get that message across, it commences with the roll of thunder outside a house where a party is already in full swing (because despite moving to New York, Rodrigo can’t shake the California tradition of house parties). And as Rodrigo primps in the bathroom mirror with her friends (the ones [played by Madison Hu, Tate McRae and Iris Apatow] she’ll later tell she “was asleep/But I never said where or in whose sheets”), she gets a call from someone in her phone labeled as, “LOSER NOT WORTH MENTIONING.” Which is far more “bespoke” than “DO NOT ANSWER.” While the party rages on outside the bathroom, Rodrigo, outfitted in a baby blue angora sweater, a silver sequined mini skirt and a heart choker, does her best imitation of Liv Tyler as Corey Mason in Empire Records (perhaps naturally assuming that members of her birth cohort won’t be able to make that connection, therefore claiming it as her own). 

    But that’s not the only pop culture icon Rodrigo is “giving” as she continues down the path of emulation for “bad idea right?” There’s also many shades of Katy Perry’s 2019 single, “Never Really Over,” during which she also finds plenty of ways to justify getting back together with an ex (albeit in a far more relationship-y way than what Rodrigo wants to do on “bad idea right?”). This includes Perry chirpily singing, “Oh, we were such a mess, but wasn’t it the best?/Thought it was done, but I guess it’s never really over.” Before this part of the chorus, she already mirrors Rodrigo’s self-flagellating attitude in the first and second verses: “I’m losing my self control/Yeah, you’re starting to trickle back in/But I don’t wanna fall down the rabbit hole/Cross my heart, I won’t do it again/I tell myself, tell myself, tell myself, ‘Draw the line’/And I do, I do/But once in a while I trip up, and I cross the line/And I think of you.” 

    Rodrigo does more than just “think” in “bad idea right?”—she takes action. Ergo, letting herself be pulled, like a Pisces on a reel, right back up to her ex’s apartment. However, this doesn’t occur until after much more internal deliberation and much more alcohol consumption (“I’m out right now and I’m all fucked up”). Then, after a bit of crowd surfing, she gathers the courage to stow away in the back of a truck while it’s still pouring down rain. As if that weren’t already enough of a testament to her commitment to getting some hard (or at least semi-soft) dick, when the driver ends up with car trouble, she then gets on a bus that’s seemingly filled with several other people who also think it’s a bad idea (right?) to go see their own exes. Or maybe they just think it’s a bad idea for Rodrigo to go see hers. 

    Either way, the fact that “bad idea right?” has been released right after the accusatory/never-speaking-to-you-again “vampire” just goes to show how indecisive a girl can be when a fuckboy is involved (or girl, since many fans have speculated that “vampire” is actually about Taylor Swift—which would be a very “Bad Blood” maneuver). This, too, being evident in Taylor Swift’s 2012 hit, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” Another track that was inspired by the main “muse” of Red: Jake Gyllenhaal. And although Swift is adamant that she is “never ever ever getting back together” with said ex, it took her a long time to get to that point. Likely succumbing to the same temptations that Rodrigo speaks to in “bad idea right?” Something Swift alludes to in the first verse with the lines, “I remember when we broke up the first time/Saying, ‘This is it, I’ve had enough,’ ‘cause like/We hadn’t seen each other in a month/When you said you needed space (What?)/Then you come around again and say, ‘Baby, I miss you and I swear I’m gonna change, trust me’/Remember how that lasted for a day?/I say, ‘I hate you,’ we break up, you call me, ‘I love you.’” In Rodrigo’s case, it’s less “I love you” and more “I wanna fuck you.” Call it the increasing jadedness of each succeeding generation (but on the plus side, at least someone from Gen Z is expressing a desire to fuck at all). 

    Finally arriving at his apartment (on the second floor, a detail she notes very strategically) for her dick appointment, Rodrigo peels off her baby blue sweater (miraculously free of any signs of the slushy that got spilled all over her while she was on the bus) to show off a white tank top that will get optimally wet in the rain just in time for when he answers the door. Except that he’s too busy being a literal firework (another nod to Katy Perry?) in the bedroom (as “good 4 u” told us, Rodrigo has a thing for fiery bedrooms). Despite his ostensible inability to answer the door, Rodrigo makes it inside regardless and lies down next to “him.” Or rather, “it.” Because “he’s” actually  nothing more than some arcane form of light energy radiating those damn fireworks (again, this is a very Pisces way to portray things).

    As he goes up in smoke next to her, Rodrigo notices an errant spider crawling near her on the pillow. And yes, the symbolism of a spider—a creature that lures its prey into the web—is not lost on the viewer. Sketched out and appalled, this seems to serve as the sobering wake-up call she needs to reassess her bad idea in favor of a good one. Or so we’d like to believe. Just as we’d like to believe the same of ourselves. That we’re not some weak, frivolous little bia giving in to temptation as readily as Eve. Who didn’t even have the excuse of being drunk for her whimsical decision.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Olivia Rodrigo Gets Emotionally Sucked Dry (Again) On “Vampire”

    Olivia Rodrigo Gets Emotionally Sucked Dry (Again) On “Vampire”

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    It’s no secret that Olivia Rodrigo is a Twilight fan. Shit, she even has an unreleased song called “Twilight,” with lyrics that go, “Don’t know if you’re busy/Don’t know if you like me/Don’t know if it’s weird/But I kinda do like you/This small town thing’s not as bad as I thought/So do you wanna hang out or not?” Clearly speaking from the perspective of Bella (Kristen Stewart) on this track, Rodrigo takes what she did in that strumming, upbeat number and turns the concept into something decidedly more Lana Del Rey-esque (with initial speculation positing that the single would sample “Cinnamon Girl”—it doesn’t). After all, Rodrigo was overtly changed after spending a bit of time with her at Billboard‘s Women In Music Awards, where Del Rey was presented with the Visionary Award by none other than Rodrigo. It was during her presentation that Rodrigo gushed, “Lana has raised an entire generation of music lovers and songwriters like me, and taught them that there’s beauty in their vulnerability and power in their melancholy… I still consider [“Video Games”] to be probably the best love song of all time. She captures anger, sadness and sensuality in a way that only the greatest of songwriters ever could.” Rodrigo is obviously dead-set on taking that path as well, with yet another ambitious, tempo-switching single in the form of “vampire” (alas, spelled with the annoying “stylized in lowercase” trend that won’t quit).

    As the lead single for her appropriately-titled sophomore album, Guts, Rodrigo calls this work and sound a “natural progression” from where we left off on Sour. And, indeed, there seems to be little differentiation between the album artwork of Sour and Guts, with purple obviously being Rodrigo’s preferred color palette. Even if one might have envisioned crimson or blood red being a more ideal tone to express the mood and theme of the record. Or maybe that was too “on the nose (neck?)” for Rodrigo. Almost as on the nose as “vampire” not only being an homage to Twilight, but also the video itself being an homage to Taylor Swift’s 2021 Grammy performance. For Rodrigo, being a major Swiftie (regardless of the latter tapping Sabrina Carpenter to be one of her openers on the Eras Tour), surely must have based her awards show performance in the video on what Swift did with her Grammys medley of “cardigan,” “august” and “willow.” It has the same tweeness, the same whimsy, the same preciousness…the same lighting style.

    And, speaking of lights, it’s a huge one that breaks the illusion of Rodrigo singing in an ambient nature setting just for us as it crashes into her head from above. Granted, there were telltale sparks falling during two brief instances before that point, but perhaps we were too distracted by the carefully-curated “fog” (a.k.a. fog machine) punctuating her romantic performance singing into a vintage hand-held mic (of a variety one could imagine Billie Holiday using…if she didn’t favor her mic stands so much). At the one-minute, twenty-seven mark, the spotlight breaks the “fourth wall,” as it were, by crashing into Rodrigo’s head and revealing that she is, in fact, not “within a narrative” (or at least not the one we thought), but rather, performing for an audience at an awards show. Commodifying her pain…once again. As she was instructed/learned to do by the likes of musical forebears such as Swift and Del Rey.

    It’s also around this point that Rodrigo pulls the “drivers license” maneuver in terms of switching tempos and offering that crescendo moment that’s become something of a signature in her songs. As she puts it, “I’ve just always been obsessed with songs that are really dynamic. Like my favorite songs are high and low and reel you in and spit you back out.” “vampire” certainly achieves that in spades, particularly as Rodrigo, now bloodied and further emotionally broken by the spotlight literally hitting her, continues with her performance. For, as it is said, the show must go on. Even when she’s been burned (or is “sucked” the better, if not more lascivious, word?)—as a matter of fact, the entire stage is on fire—once again by some unworthy asshole. Ostensibly, one who wasn’t even actually famous (à la Will Thacker in Notting Hill)—as indicated by the lyrics, “Blood sucker, fame fucker.” Because yes, more than being just a song inspired by vampires and Twilight, it’s a song that explores the detrimental effects of letting someone “emotionally suck” from you over and over again.

    Often, this is what is called an “energy vampire” (see also: What We Do In The Shadows). MARINA, another Del Rey contemporary, also explores this topic on her 2019 track from Love + Fear, “No More Suckers.” Similar to Rodrigo accusing, “The way you sold me for parts/As you sunk your teeth into me, oh/Bloodsucker, famefucker/Bleedin’ me dry like a goddamn vampire,” MARINA declares in response to such behavior, “No more suckers in my life/All the drama gets them high/I’m just trying to draw the line/No more suckers in my life/They just keep bleeding me dry/‘Til there’s nothing left inside.”

    But what Rodrigo has left inside after enduring her own “sucker” is the wisdom and the renewed strength that she will carry within her going forward. Starting to understand that, as is being said more regularly of late, the real reason older men so “love” younger women is because of how much more easily they can be manipulated. As Rodrigo sings, “Went for me and not her/‘Cause girls your age know better.” Then again, not always. Just look at Taylor falling prey to Matty Healy. At least for now, however, Rodrigo has the “benefit” of youth on her side. A.k.a. the perfect excuse for still remaining naïve despite assuming that one is infinitely more sophisticated with the passing of just a couple years. Perhaps, before the passage of that two years, it was her “greenness” that caused her to be lured in by the “parties and the diamonds” (a phrase, appropriately enough, that could be mistaken for something out of the Del Rey or MARINA canon), with such evocations only happening/appearing at night. The same time that vampires are free to come out and play. Thus, not only does Rodrigo brood, “I see the parties and the diamonds sometimes when I close my eyes/Six months of torture you sold as some forbidden paradise,” but also, “I should’ve known it was strange/You only come out at night.” Because yes, when something seems odd or too good to be true, chances are, it is.

    As Rodrigo keeps trying to carry on with her performance at the generically-titled “19th Annual Awards” (though that number has special meaning considering Rodrigo wrote most of this record when she was nineteen), audience members at first try to applaud her on before becoming scandalized via the influence of the sudden presence of “the law.” A number of police officers materializing to escort her offstage to the point where she finally gives up on the performance and runs out of the auditorium in a terrorized frenzy—all as their flashlights chase her through the darkness. These lights (and the people attached to them) continue to pursue her through the streets of L.A. (perhaps this was filmed by Petra Collins [of “good 4 u” and “brutal” repute] before Rodrigo betrayed her coast and absconded for the East…or maybe she just felt obliged to pop on over to L.A. to do the shoot).

    In the midst of reminding the “vampire” she’s addressing, “I’ve made some real big mistakes/But you make the worst one [would that be Joshua Bassett?] look fine,” Rodrigo learns that she suddenly has the vampiric power of flight, allowing her to ascend high above an L.A. freeway adjacent to Downtown (which has been getting mad play lately in videos like “Attention” and “Shy Boy”). As the cars pass behind and beneath her, it gives new meaning to the lyric, “The way you sold me for parts.” Meanwhile, the cops with their flashlights still wait down below with the same naïveté that Rodrigo once had before indulging this vampire. Earnestly belting out her pain as she looks directly into the camera, some might ask what, exactly, is supposed to differentiate any of this from Sour. Well, to remind, Rodrigo’s “mentors,” Del Rey and Swift never had (or have) to differentiate too much from one album to the next to maintain their devoted legion of listeners.

    And if Lana Del Rey’s “shtick” is being a sad girl, then so is Rodrigo’s—blending that “persona” with the heartbreak-oriented lyrics that have also made Taylor Swift such a success. Because, to be sure, heartbreak remains as timeless as sex (/sexy vampires) when it comes to “what sells.”

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    Genna Rivieccio

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